Canal de Calais: Waterway to an Ancient City This morning on exiting Relais – Flandre – Artois, Gratis undertook a left turn onto the Canal de la Colme. A short motor that retraced our steps of yesterday, and soon she undertook a second left took us on a 4.5km journey upon the beautiful River L […]

The French Adventure Continues…… After two days of rain, the skies cleared and at the first opening of the bridge for the morn, Gratis was up and ready. This was another of those trips repeated from last year, but it was a pleasant six hour motor that saw us deal with three slow locks in […]

After a quiet night’s rest it was time to go. A beautiful motor – that included a short wait – along a waterway in which a multitude of smaller channels and additional canals joined. Past that leading to Calais went Gratis – that’s for another year. Oh yes!! The Frenchmen love their fishing. The history of […]

The climb commencing at the first of the locks, we soon left Dunkirk behind and entered the rural countryside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRRoKKOq3KI&feature=youtu.be Farmers going to and fro, carting their harvests in the trays, walkers and riders were all to be seen. Unlike the western most canal we had recently finished, this was a major channel and the […]